Palestinians to South Sudan? A Recipe for Disaster 

Palestinians to South Sudan? A Recipe for Disaster 

It seems like the Israelis are giving serious consideration to taking compete control over Gaza and expelling the Palestinians. Remember Trump had suggested it and I blogged on it as well. Reports are that Libya, South Sudan and Syria have been contacted to take the Palestinians. I presume that these countries would receive significant bribes. I think it is a dumb idea. Why would any country take in a multitude of Palestinians who would in turn start fomenting discord? I know my blog has no influence but it would be better if as I suggested that you distribute them evenly among all the Arab countries except Jordan (which already has three million Palestinians). If the remaining 22 Arab countries took 136,363 Palestinians of the 3 million in Gaza then no country would have an outsized burden. I guess that makes too much sense.

What’s this about sending them to South Sudan? Obviously, the Israelis hate the Palestinians and are trying to condemn them to hell. Are the folks from Gaza subsistence farmers and herders? Is this some type of cruel joke to send them to a country plagued with famine and genocide? Dropping a few million or so people from Gaza into South Sudan is simply asking for trouble. Yet Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel recently visited the South Sudanese capital Juba and spoke with government officials. Hey, maybe she was just driving by and stopped in for tea. I really cannot fathom why South Sudan would take the Palestinians except for large personal bribes being paid to the country’s leading officials. 

So why not add to the misery of both the Gazans and the Sudanese? Both are used to fighting each other for food, so it will be a perfect match. There are thousands of refugees from South Sudan in Uganda, Chad, Malawi and Ethiopia. Maybe the Sudanese government says “well there is now plenty of room for the Palestinians now that three million Sudanese are sheltered elsewhere. These refugees are desperately seeking food after cuts in US aid. The Wall Street Journal reports that “At Uganda’s sprawling Kiryandongo refugee settlement, residents who had fled South Sudan attacked the mud-and-tarpaulin shelters of new arrivals from Sudan, stealing food, killing one and injuring almost 100, according to doctors and witnesses.” “During a four-day rampage last month, hundreds of South Sudanese refugees, armed with machetes and sticks, stormed a large, separate compound housing Sudanese newcomers.” South Sudan is obviously no paradise and a forced settlement of Palestinians would only add to the misery of both peoples.

Trump’s cutting off of African food aid is beyond heartless. It is devastating to many parts of the continent. “In May, the U.N. food agency ended food distribution to one million refugees in Uganda due to funding shortfalls, largely from U.S. cuts. The U.N. Refugee Agency said last week it expects to run out of emergency funds for Uganda next month. At that point it will be able to provide only $5 a month in blankets, sanitary pads, soap and other essentials to each refugee—about a third of what’s required, according to the agency.” “Chad, which hosts some 1.2 million Sudanese refugees, is facing a funding gap of nearly $280 million this year, according to the U.N. Refugee Agency. Refugees in the southern African nation of Malawi have been on half-rations since the month after Trump took office earlier this year and began closing down American aid programs.”

And this is where Israel wants to send those from Gaza? You can’t be serious. Israel probably knows that the majority of the Palestinians will not stay in South Sudan and will migrate elsewhere. But initially, they will increase the burden on relief efforts. Yes, I know there was a great deal of abuse in USAID but the cutting off of funds to those starving Sudanese refugees is beyond cruel. The photo above is of malnourished children in an orphanage in Sudan who are fed boiled leaves because there is little other food. There has got to be a special place in hell for those who would cut off food to these suffering people. 

If not for the accident of one’s birth.